Wednesday 12 May 2010

Teaching the Swedes British Politics

I think in truth that this is a harder task since at least cricket has a clear list of laws and rules...After all how can it seem fair that one party can get 22% of the votes, and only 9% of the seats, or another to get 26% votes and 37% of the seats.  The point is that constinuencies are inconsistent in their size and the first past the post sytem (FPP) is archaic.
 I won't even bother on trying to explain how people would have been unable to vote because I don't understand that either.  It seems that in a lot of european countries their elections take place on a Sunday and therefore people don't have the problem of being at work all day.  Ours have always taken place on Thursdays and I can only think that this dates back from a time the only people allowed to vote were the ones who didn't have to work anyway!
So we got a hung parliament as expected, and the upshot is that we have our first coalition government since the second world war.  I have been seeing some odd comments on facebook throughout all of this, about people complaining about voting Lib Dem, to see a Tory government in place etc.  But did they expect Nick Clegg to form a minority government with only 57 seats?  Or perhaps they just expected him to sit on the sidelines and do nothing?
The fact that the Tories will now have to moderate some of their policies seems to have escaped them totally, along with the fact that a party they voted for will actually have a say in the running of the country.  There seems to be no pleasing some people.
How this will all turn out is intriguing to say the least.

On another topic entirely, I took a walk through Hyde Park and some of the city yesterday, to find a profusion of elephants!  Not real ones, model ones, everywhere and in various colours.  It's been organised by Elephant Family, a charity protecting asian elephants.  More about the elephant parade in london can be found on the website.

1 comment:

  1. Well, I voted Labour, and although I think Brown was right to resign, I am appalled that Clegg has handed Cameron the keys. I suppose it could be considered intriguing, but the handful of Lib Dems will be bullied by the Conservative majority. Clegg has sold out and is nothing more than Cameron's lapdog now. Labour and Lib Dem would have been preferable, albeit a minority government, but at least they have more similar values.

    ReplyDelete